During the course of certain medical and surgical procedures, there is sometimes a need to provide a relatively high volume flow of irrigating fluid to the site of the body of the patient at which the procedure is being performed. For example, sometimes this fluid flow is required during the performance of an endoscopic surgical procedure. In an endoscopic surgical procedure, an elongated tube is directed to a surgical site within a patient through an opening called a portal. Other surgical instruments are directed to the surgical site through other portals. The surgeon views the surgical site through the endoscope. Based on the image viewed, the surgeon manipulates the other surgical instruments in order to perform the desired surgical procedure. In an endoscopic surgical procedure, as opposed to an open cut procedure, less of the patient's body is cut open to access the surgical site. This minimal opening of the patient's body both lessens the extent to which the patient's internal organs and tissue are open to infection and the extent to which the patient has to heal after surgery.
Two types of endoscopic surgical procedures are laparoscopic procedures and arthroscopic procedures. In a laparoscopic surgical procedure, a specialized type of endoscope, a laparoscope, and companion surgical instruments are used to perform minimally invasive surgery within the abdominal cavity of the patient. In a laparoscopic surgical procedure, it is sometimes necessary to provide a large volume of irrigating fluid to wash out and clear the surgical site. An arthroscopic surgical procedure is a procedure that is performed endoscopically on the musculo-skeletal system of the patient. In an arthroscopic surgical procedure, it is sometimes necessary to provide a large volume of irrigating fluid in order to distend the tissue at the surgical site and/or to clear away debris from the surgical site.
Many high volume irrigation pumps presently available are constructed to have what are referred to as pressure closets. A pressure closet is a space that is typically located between the front face of the pump and a complementary lid. Internal to the pump is an inflatable bladder that expands into the pressure closet. This pump is used by placing a bag containing the irrigating fluid into the pressure closet. When irrigating fluid is desired, compressed air is supplied to the bladder to cause its expansion into the pressure closet and against the bag. The action of the bladder working against the bag compresses the bag so as to force the fluid in the bag out of the pump, through an attached tube and into the patient. Thus, by using pumps of this type, a flow of sterile fluid at flow rates traditionally between, for example, 3.0 lt./min. and 4.5 lt./min., can be obtained.
There are some disadvantages associated with the presently available pumps used to provide the above flow rates. For example, as mentioned above, many of the presently available pumps function by inflating a bladder integral with the pump. The air used to inflate this bladder is supplied from the hospital's internal air supply source. Thus, whenever use of this type of pump is required during a surgical procedure, an air line must be connected between an outlet in the surgical suite and a complementary inlet on the pump. The introduction of this air line into the surgical suite adds to the overall clutter in the suite that the surgical staff needs to avoid. Additionally, special adapters are needed to connect with various surgical suite outlets.
Moreover, in order to set up many popular pumps for operation the staff must: insure the air line is connected to the wall outlet; open the door to the pressure closet; hang the bag; shut the door; latch the door shut; set the desired pressure; and actuate a power switch. Once a bag is emptied, the staff must unlock the door and open it in order to remove the bag. Requiring the surgical staff to perform all these different steps makes both mounting the bag in the pump and then removing the empty bag a time-consuming process.
Moreover, many current pumps are provided with transparent doors to their pressure closets. In theory, this type of door allows the surgical staff to look at a bag to visually determine the extent to which it has been emptied. However, as a consequence of the bag being pressed against the door, and the fact that both the bag and the fluid are transparent, it is often difficult to quickly determine the volume of fluid in a partially emptied bag. Surgical personnel are often left with two options if it is not immediately clear how much fluid remains. First, the personnel may have to temporarily stop performing the surgical procedure and focus their attentions on accurately determining the extent to which the bag has been emptied.
Alternatively, the personnel can continue performing the surgical procedure based on an estimate that the bag contains a sufficient amount of fluid for the next time a high volume discharge of fluid is required.
In order to facilitate the efficient use of surgical supplies, bags containing different volumes of the sterile fluid are available. Two of the most popular sized bags contain either 1 lt. or 3 lt. of fluid. Unfortunately, many presently available pumps are designed to force fluid out of a single size of bag. In order to reduce the amount of equipment in an operating room, typically, only a single pump is present. If, for a particular procedure, only a pump for a 1 lt. bag is available and large amounts of fluid are required, the surgical personnel will then have to spend an inordinate amount of time removing empty bags and replacing them with full ones. If, for a particular procedure, a 3 lt. bag pump is provided and only a relatively small volume of fluid is required, the unspent contents of the bag will, after the procedure, go to waste.